Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments
Search

News for nerds, stuff that matters

Slashdot Log In

Log In

Create Account  |  Retrieve Password

Creating Prion-Free Cows

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Tue Jan 02, 2007 06:25 AM
from the un-mad-cows dept.
Biotech Science
Science Daily is reporting that the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Research Service (ARS) is reporting positive results from a recent study designed to create genetically engineered prion-free cattle. From the article: "ARS studied eight Holstein males that were developed by Hematech Inc., a pharmaceutical research company based in Sioux Falls, S.D. The evaluation of the prion-free cattle was led by veterinary medical officer Juergen Richt of ARS' National Animal Disease Center (NADC) in Ames, Iowa. The evaluation revealed no apparent developmental abnormalities in the prion-free cattle."
+ -
story
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.

Creating Prion-Free Cows 25 Comments More /

 Full
 Abbreviated
 Hidden
More
Loading... please wait.

  • Dead sheeps (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Per Abrahamsen (1397) on Tuesday January 02 2007, @06:34AM (#17430186) Homepage
    This is great! Now we can go back to feeding the cows a healthy diet of dead sheep, which was how the whole "mad cow" thing started.

    • Re:Dead sheeps (Score:5, Insightful)

      by WindBourne (631190) on Tuesday January 02 2007, @06:38AM (#17430208) Journal
      Actually, that is not proven. It it THOGUGHT that scrapies is the same as Madcow ( and MC CWD CJD), but they are not certain. But even with that, I want to know how accurate is the test these days? It is great that they did not have any positive in what was suppose to be negative cattle. But will they get a good positive in an infected animal?

      • Re:Dead sheeps (Score:4, Insightful)

        by slashbob22 (918040) on Tuesday January 02 2007, @10:27AM (#17431228)

        But will they get a good positive in an infected animal?
        As far as I understand with MC, CWD, Scrapies, CJD and Varient CJD the only way to ensure accuracy of tests is through a biopsy of the brain tissue of a dead subject. While there are tests for live subjects (clinical observations) they are not definitive [wikipedia.org].

        • Not quite the same disease (Score:4, Informative)

          by DrYak (748999) on Tuesday January 02 2007, @11:24AM (#17431706) Homepage
          BSE and CJD are very similar (same mechanism) but not exactly the sane disease (not exactly the same "diseased" protein shape), which also explains the longer incubation time.

          the only way to ensure accuracy of tests is through a biopsy of the brain tissue of a dead subject. While there are tests for live subjects (clinical observations) they are not definitive.


          Also there *ARE* good tests to determine the ESB both faster than the biopsy and not needing to put down the cow, much better than clinical observations.
          Intensive research has been done in German and Swiss laboratories. The first test working on live animal has been developped in Göttingen, Germany. Thus sadly, the information is only available in the German version of wikipedia [wikipedia.org]. (Though the german article mentions a later Texan discovery).

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by MightyYar (622222)
      Well, Chronic Wasting Disease [wikipedia.org] has managed to do a number on deer without anyone feeding sheep to deer - so don't be so certain about the origin of mad cow. It might have spontaneously occurred in cattle populations, or there might be some other vector.

      For what it's worth, soybean meal is the primary protein source for cattle in the US, and it has been for a long time. IIRC, Europe was the only place where they had to grind up sheep and cows for protein because soybeans don't grow very well there in general.

    • Or dead people (Score:5, Interesting)

      by giafly (926567) on Tuesday January 02 2007, @08:01AM (#17430486)
      In 2005 a controversial paper in The Lancet introduced a theory that BSE might have originated in British cattle when they ate imported animal feed that included infected human remains from Hindu funeral ceremonies in India.
      Bovine spongiform encephalopathy [wikipedia.org]

      This theory has some merit because scrapie from sheep does not appear to infect people, whereas BSE from cattle does.

    • Re:Dead sheeps (Score:5, Funny)

      by AndroidCat (229562) on Tuesday January 02 2007, @08:38AM (#17430662) Homepage
      Why yes, they should have been feeding live sheep to cows...

  • That is one solution... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by abscissa (136568) on Tuesday January 02 2007, @06:34AM (#17430188)
    ... or you could just not feed them parts of their dead relatives?

    • Re:That is one solution... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Oswald (235719) on Tuesday January 02 2007, @06:50AM (#17430252)
      Isn't it encouraging to know that, while your solution works in theory, it's not good enough in practice because you can't trust people not to do that.

      Doesn't seem that hard, really, but people are pretty stupid.

    • Re:That is one solution... (Score:5, Informative)

      by Miksu77 (768588) on Tuesday January 02 2007, @06:58AM (#17430296)
      Or you could take the road us Finns have taken: Nowadays each and every cow that dies here is tested and not a single piece of a particular animal may be used to produce food unless that animal has been tested.
      • Yes, but the Finns have a government that serves the people.

        • Re:That is one solution... (Score:5, Interesting)

          by RexRhino (769423) on Tuesday January 02 2007, @11:24AM (#17431702)
          Yes, but the Finns have a government that serves the people.

          Given the fact that Finns pay (on average) 22% more for food than the EU average ( http://www.hs.fi/english/article/Food+still+expens ive+in+Finland+by+European+standards/1076153030941 [www.hs.fi] ), and given the fact that 'Mad Cow' disease is so astronomically unlikely to infect anyone when absolutly no precautions are being taken, any reasonable person has to question the cost/value of food paranoia.

          I would say Finns requiring test for Mad Cow to be more about protectionism (it is against trade rules to outright ban foriegn beef, but if you require very specific and expensive testing on beef that isn't harmonized with other countries, and then subsidize the testing for domestic producers, you can essentially sidestep trade rules).

  • http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=d (Score:3, Informative)

    by M0b1u5 (569472) on Tuesday January 02 2007, @06:34AM (#17430192) Homepage
    I confess; I had to look up what a prion is.
    I'm so embarrassed.

    http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=define%3A +prions%3F&btnG=Search [google.com]

  • Had to look it up (Score:3, Informative)

    by antic (29198) on Tuesday January 02 2007, @06:36AM (#17430200)
    From Wikipedia: "a type of infectious agent made only of protein."

    "Mad cow disease" is a prion disease.

  • Abnormal prions cause BSE (Score:5, Funny)

    by Timesprout (579035) on Tuesday January 02 2007, @06:39AM (#17430214)
    or Mad Cow Disease for those of you like myself who had no idea what the headline was about.

    The actual article headline "Mad Cow Breakthrough?" really should have been followed by a story about mad cow scientists were developing a doomsday weapon to destroy humanity, or that mad cow armies were breaking through our outer defense perimeter or some such. Would have been much more interesting.

  • What about the positive effects of the prions? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by tade (156618) on Tuesday January 02 2007, @06:54AM (#17430270)
    Wikipedia article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prion [wikipedia.org] mentions this article http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=p ubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=AbstractPlus&list_uids=159 31169&query_hl=6&itool=pubmed_DocSum [nih.gov] that mentions the prions in relation with long term memory. I wonder how well they tested the cows without the prions. (Abstract below)

    Changes in protein conformation drive most biological processes, but none have seized the imagination of scientists and the public alike as have the self-replicating conformations of prions. Prions transmit lethal neurodegenerative diseases by means of the food chain. However, self-replicating protein conformations can also constitute molecular memories that transmit genetic information. Here, we showcase definitive evidence for the prion hypothesis and discuss examples in which prion-encoded heritable information has been harnessed during evolution to confer selective advantages. We then describe situations in which prion-enciphered events might have essential roles in long-term memory formation, transcriptional memory and genome-wide expression patterns.

  • New study! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Aladrin (926209) on Tuesday January 02 2007, @08:16AM (#17430562)
    So how long until we get a new study that says Prions were indeed good things, and should have been left in our meat.

    From TFA: "Prions are proteins that are naturally produced in animals."

    Hmm... Removing natural things... Nope, doesn't sound like a good idea to me. I just can't wait until they find out that Prions actually helped prevent cancer or something and everyone on the planet now has a timebomb in their body.

    Seriously, they'd better do some SERIOUS studies on this before feeding this crap to me.

  • Two reactions - 1 cynical, 1 wistful (Score:3, Insightful)

    by punterjoe (743063) on Tuesday January 02 2007, @09:12AM (#17430818)
    I too wondered why "big science" would try to come up with a way to create cattle that can still be fed 'cannibal chow' without getting sick, instead of just changing the feed to something healthy, when I realised there are no IP licensing rights for natural, healthy cattle. This 'super cow' is surely patentable :(
        My other disappointment is that so much time & resourcefulness was spent on this rather than a way to prevent prion diease from taking it's toll on the untold people who have eaten infected 'industrial-beef' through fast food & other sources but won't show symptoms for many years.

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by Cederic (9623)

      I'd rather eat meat and die young. Pigs taste good.

      As for environmental factors, the planet will do just fine all by itself. Until the sun explodes and destroys it, so I guess we'd better build some big engines.

    • Re:A better idea (Score:5, Funny)

      by elrous0 (869638) * on Tuesday January 02 2007, @10:40AM (#17431356)
      I think vegetarians just coast on smug fumes for that last 10%-15%.

      -Eric

All trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their respective owners. Comments are owned by the Poster. The Rest © 1997-2009 Geeknet, Inc.